Short Story, "Block" (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Ripple Effect of Terror: Escalating the Rules of Patriarchal Conformity upon the Psyche of Women in The Oleander Girl, 2022
Women continue to be deprived of their right to live independently and within acceptable boundaries. Indian women frequently take up the responsibilities of preservers of culture and tradition. They are constrained by an excessive number of laws and regulations, most of which are justified in the name of customs and religion. The patriarchal power that is inherent in Indian society shapes how they experience the Indian value system. In the case of the lives of women in the diaspora, due to their struggles with the financial and psychological uncertainties of exile, the responsibilities of family and career, and the claims of both the old and new patriarchies, they find themselves doubly disadvantaged. Additionally, these women must fight against pervasive racial prejudice in nearly every sphere of their lives. The works of Indian American author, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, touch on a variety of diasporic topics as well as the experiences of female immigrants in their adoptive homes. The Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni portrays the double impact of war and the ripple effect of terror on women that transcends national boundaries. The terror attack of 9/11 impacted the lives of both citizens and the diaspora communities in the USA. Terror creates an environment of unease that further constrains the liberties of individuals, particularly women. Women were expected to be peaceful, comply with their gender-specific roles, and dissociate themselves from violence. The novel shows the struggles of Bengali-American Karobi, who travels to a post-9/11 America, with a burning desire to uncover her family’s secrets. Though a life of freedom is present at her fingertips, she ultimately chooses to return to her homeland as she has promises to keep and duties to fulfill. This sacrifice of her individual choice in favour of family expectations reveals the encompassing power of love that she feels towards her grandparents, a love that diminishes the negative effects of war-induced terror on a family. The objective of the paper is to analyse the power imbalances caused by war-induced terror on a family that causes Indian women to be relegated to a confining set of stereotypical roles.
The Silence of the Women, Introduction
This book speaks about absence. It tells of the silent commentary on Bamana life that can be gleaned from objects that express the disagreements, the terrors and the successes of Bamana women as they negotiate the treacherous shoals and depths of existence in the Sahel, that broad strip of dry scrub on the edge of the Sahara. On entering a Bamana compound one always hears noise made by women (Ill. 1), so where is the silence? Women's chatter streams over and around the listener like an endless river. The water may appear cool and delicious, offering the visitor its inoffensive carp and delicate sprats, but when one examines the shadows and the silent depths, one may just detect the snout of a lone crocodile that peers out of the water, forever watching and calculating until it snatches and tears at its prey (Ill. 2). Just as the crocodile's beady eyes scan the environment without appearing to move, so the deceptive talk of powerful Bamana women, the "crocodiles" in the stream of life, shrouds their silent but strategic intelligence, their anger over the perennial scarcity of essential resources like cash or better food, and their ability to change the status quo through sorcery. In painting dark mud onto cloth, Bamana women create designs that simultaneously hide and express the longing for children, the fear of men's dominating power and the tensions between co-wives. Mud cloths and their patterns emerge from the dark depths of the unbreakable silence that lurks beneath the obvious chatter. The cloths and their designs soak up the unspoken "things of women"-their medical knowledge, their conviction that they can transform themselves into "sorcery animals," their allegiance to secret female associations that no man or woman will discuss, their thirty-and forty-year hatreds, sometimes of co-wives, and sometimes of husbands and above all their belief in the terrible, farreaching power of the female sex. It is no accident that men believe it is impossible to fathom what a woman really thinks or where she keeps her "secrets"-her menstrual cloths and other sacred things. And it is not for nothing that a young woman, noticing her great-aunt rubbing her nose, will suddenly stop talking and become inert. A wall has descended; the crocodile has gone below the waters to disappear forever. When questioned, the woman repeats that she doesn't know anything, politely maintaining this fiction no matter what. An impenetrable silence about certain, secret matters descends and the only thing to be done is to retreat and leave. This book attempts a shadowy enterprise; it attempts to make sense of the silences, the gaps, the absences in women's discourse. To the extent that it succeeds, it does so because of Bamana women both exceptional and ordinary.
Indian Association of Women's Studies Newsletter, January, 2013
As in the early 1980s which saw the emergence of women's studies in India and also the founding of IAWS, we are today, once again, debating the inter-linkages between the development process and gender relations. Be it the liberalization of the economy, the impact on sources of livelihoods, nature of work and earnings, the legal environment or for women in decision making and democratic processes-all address some fundamental questions which are as relevant today as they were in the early 1980s. These questions were posed when the startling findings of the government's Committee On Status Of Women (CSWI) in 1975 highlighted the declining position of women, particularly since independence. This decline was noted in trends such as the accelerated decline in women's employment since 1950s. Also noted was the growth of social attitudes and values, ' a regression from the norms developed during the freedom movement.' The questions posed were: whatever happened to the promises of equality that was built into the Constitution of free India ? What had led to increasing marginalization of women? Was is the problem of lack of implementation of programs or was it something deeper and intrinsic to the processes and plans of development?
Editors Introduction Doing Her Work
Journal of international women's studies, 2021
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The geopolitical history of India's Northeast replicates the history of the struggle of the ethnic communities living along what is often referred to as a "troubled periphery." The fictionalised stories produced in this region, therefore, often betray the wounds inflicted on people living in this contested territory. As such, the history of this place and the story of its people lose their distinctions, allowing ethnographic study and the fluidity of personal narrative to converge and inform each other. Malsawmi Jacob's Zorami (2018) encapsulates this history of strife and contestation through emphasizing a double significance in the eponymous character symbolising both land and women's bodies in a conflict zone. While women very often become the target of state forces during conflict as seen in Zorami, this article aims to read the defilement of women's bodies by an invasive power as a war strategy to discipline communities and territories. Drawing from Susan Brownmiller's idea of rape as an attack on the body politics and Foucault's idea of disciplining the body and soul, this article conflates war with rape to argue that both these invasive weapons are symbolic of patriarchy on one hand, and the victim's body as a site of conquest on the other hand. Like the history of a territory is written and rewritten by successive conquering forces, the stories of atrocities on women also undergo a similar process. The article further underscores that the victim's body is denied agency as it goes through a process of erasure, where written records or memory of the perpetration exist only in the lived memory of the victim. For the contesting powers, however, such perpetration is only a matter of defeat or conquest, thereby precluding the physical traumatic experience. Taking a New Historicist approach, this article will substantiate its arguments by referring to archival materials, non-fictional works, and other historical sources available on Zorami.
MA Thesis in Women’s Studies and Gender Studies
2012
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact ecommons@luc.edu. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2012 Aanmona Priyadarshini
SILENCING THE WOMEN IN THE EAST AND THE WEST
Kashmir. He has submitted his Ph.D. thesis on South Asian literature in AMU Aligarh. He has qualified UGC NET twice in addition to the SET conducted by Rajasthan Public Service Commission. He has participated and presented research papers in various national and international conferences and seminars. Mr. Javaid has published papers in many journals and has contributed in various edited books. He is also a member of the editorial board of the literary journal Firyad. Abstract: Women have been silenced in the cultures of the east as well as of the west. They have generally been assigned the domestic chores whereas the men retained for themselves the domains of trade, politics, and religion. The relationship between man and woman is a structured one and it is the man who has always been privileged as compared to women. The structural property of the imbalance between the males and the females in different societies of the world give it a universal quasi-natural standing.
Indian Association for women's Studies Newsletter, January, 2013
As in the early 1980s which saw the emergence of women's studies in India and also the founding of IAWS, we are today, once again, debating the inter-linkages between the development process and gender relations. Be it the liberalization of the economy, the impact on sources of livelihoods, nature of work and earnings, the legal environment or for women in decision making and democratic processes-all address some fundamental questions which are as relevant today as they were in the early 1980s. These questions were posed when the startling findings of the government's Committee On Status Of Women (CSWI) in 1975 highlighted the declining position of women, particularly since independence. This decline was noted in trends such as the accelerated decline in women's employment since 1950s. Also noted was the growth of social attitudes and values, ' a regression from the norms developed during the freedom movement.' The questions posed were: whatever happened to the promises of equality that was built into the Constitution of free India ? What had led to increasing marginalization of women? Was is the problem of lack of implementation of programs or was it something deeper and intrinsic to the processes and plans of development?